Petra Bjelica’s Dostoevsky’s Hamlet in Nineteenth-Century Russia: The Paradox of Subjectivity offers a richly layered exploration of Dostoevskii’s engagement with Hamlet and Russian Hamletism within historical and literary contexts. This study is a rare and valuable contribution to the scholarly conversation on the comparative aspects of the two authors’ works, as well as Shakespeare’s reception in Russia of the period. Dostoevsky’s Hamlet presents a window into how Russian audiences have identified with the Prince and his plight, turning, not so much the play, but the character into a framework for understanding their own national and individual crises. To trace the evolution of Hamletian reception in Russia, the study often draws on the insights of other scholars; but while this works well in the introduction for contextualization, later in the book, frequent citations occasionally muffle the author’s own analysis and arguments.

At the outset, the book convincingly underscores the tension between “fiction and reality” central both to Hamlet and Dostoevskii’s fiction, illustrating how Dostoevskii puzzles over the “illusory aspects of subjectivity” through what Bjelica terms as “chaotic narration” (1). Simultaneously, Bjelica acknowledges, echoing Claudius’s keen observation of Hamlet’s “antic disposition” that these may indeed be methodical. Drawing on Michael Holquist’s commentary on Dostoevskii’s complex relationship with Russia and the novel, Bjelica frames these areas of “self-identification” as particularly urgent, and that there is a common denominator in all three “processes” of identity-creation (2). Bjelica carefully differentiates between “Shakespearization” and “Shakespearianism”: the former as the broader cultural appropriation of Shakespeare’s heritage, and the latter as the specific adaptation and reception of his works in the Russian context (12–13). This distinction is crucial in situating Dostoevskii’s work within a broader tradition of Russian literary appropriation, without losing sight of Dostoevskii’s unique contribution to it.

Central to the book’s theoretical framework is semiotics, encapsulated in the concepts of the Hamlet-ideologeme, Hamlet-isotopy network, and a four-layer model of signification. Bjelica primarily focuses on the development of the Hamlet-ideologeme, offering as a point of departure Dostoevskii’s 1838 letter to his brother Mikhail, presenting it as a formula of identity crisis in his novels that invites readers to take a closer look at protean Hamletian figures (3; 24; 98–99). Although these theoretical directions are conceptually ambitious, the categories at times overlap. For instance, linking the “final word” moment in Crime and Punishment, of Raskolnikov’s moment of indecision, to a broad isotopy network risks overstretching the concept, a tendency also reinforced by relying largely on the English translation of texts rather than the original Russian (77–78). Including the Russian text (“posredi mostovoi na perekrestke … ozhidaia ot kogo-to poslednego slova,” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridsati tomakh, Leningrad, 1972–1990, hereafter PSS, 6:135) would have foregrounded, for example, the crossroads’ cultural resonance and its relation to indecision, the demonic, and moral responsibility. Similarly, Sonia’s instruction to Raskolnikov (“Poidi na perekrestok, poklonisʹ narodu, potselui zemliu,” PSS, 6:404) adds further ethical weight. Attending to these terms and passages would have enriched Bjelica’s treatment of self-identification and the interplay between micro- and macro-level concerns in Dostoevskii, akin to Shakespeare’s meditations on the rotten state of Denmark.

Bjelica identifies other key Hamletian motifs in Dostoevskii, including dilemmas related to madness and the limits of rationality, through the lens of iurodivostʹ or holy foolishness, asking: “Does Dostoevsky have in mind madness as a disease, a moral and spiritual crisis, a disintegration of the subject, or does he understand this state as a particular folly in the tradition of iurodivost?” (5). Bjelica interprets iurodivostʹ as a “willingly performed madness,” but also giving attention to the phenomenon’s subconscious or involuntary/unfeigned dimensions. Its association with mental disability could have offered a more expansive sense of the historical and cultural range of madness Bjelica elsewhere considers, such as in the section, “Hamlet’s ‘Let be,’” where she links Hamlet’s ironic and paradoxical non-resolution, building on my formulation of the paradox of schism, with Dostoevskii’s kenotic engagement with otherness. This interpretive thread continues in a later chapter where Bjelica’s comparison of Stavrogin to Hamlet through the motif of “words, words, words” proves apt as a way of capturing shared rationalizing impulse and exhaustion. Similarly, Bjelica’s reading of Demons as Dostoevskii’s most Hamletesque work, tied to the Gospel epigraph and the “let be” project, is both insightful and demonstrable through the author’s careful intertextual analysis.

The conclusion of the book gestures toward broader ethical and philosophical reflection, pointing to Levinasian phenomenological ethics and Blaise Pascal’s “knowing ignorance” (212; 209), as a way of understanding Dostoevskii’s attunement to otherness. Suggestive and thought-provoking, the conclusion is an invitation for sustained development on these questions. The epilogue’s vision of situating (and calling for) Dostoevskii within Global Shakespeare narratives is especially forward-looking, as it can help us understand, according to the author, European contradictions and demands on otherness. The book, overall, succeeds in offering a wide-ranging exploration of Dostoevskii’s Hamletian project, showing just how fluid Hamletian figures in Dostoevskii are. The study’s historical contextualization, inter- and para-textuality offer a valuable contribution to both Dostoevskii and Shakespeare studies.